Four charter school operators have been selected to lease space in two surplus D.C. public school buildings, according to an announcement this week by Mayor Vincent C. Gray and Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith.Read full article >>

While many children in Northern Virginia are lazing away the last days of summer next year, students in Prince William County will head to school before Labor Day for the first time, officials said.The county School Board on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve a school calendar for the 2015-2016 academic year that has classes starting on Monday, Aug. 31. The decision will give students a two-week winter vacation, an earlier end to the academic year in June and more time for teachers to prepare students for standardized tests, according to a school system statement.Read full article >>

Patrick Murphy, who has overseen unprecedented growth at Arlington Public Schools, was named one of four finalists for national superintendent of the year by AASA, the School Superintendents Association.Read full article >>

The state of Maryland has developed a new Common Core-aligned “kindergarten readiness assessment” for teachers to administer to young kids to see, rather obviously, if they are “ready” for kindergarten. Now hundreds of kindergarten teachers who used the computer-based test for the first time this fall are pushing back, saying the assessment is not appropriate and won’t help them teach.Read full article >>

The first wave of admission decisions is in for the Class of 2019.Here are admission rates for the early round at some highly selective schools. We’ll update as we get more data. These are culled from news releases.Read full article >>

Last week, Mississippi was passed over for a federal preschool grant that would have tripled the number of children enrolled in early-education classes in four years, according to the state’s application.